UK’s largest commerce unions have joined the rising worldwide backlash in opposition to Israel’s blacklisting of six Palestinian human rights and civil society teams as terrorist organisations with a damning joint letter to the federal government calling on Quantity 10 “to problem this repressive transfer.”
“We strongly condemn the Israeli authorities’s outrageous resolution to criminalise six Palestinian human rights and civil society teams by designating them as ‘terrorists’,” stated the letter signed by TUC, ASLEF, BFAWU, NEU, PCS, RMT, UCU, UNISON and Unite the Union.
The group of unions denounced Israel’s authoritarian crackdown. “This assault is a brazen try to additional limit Palestinian rights and to silence and punish Palestinian human rights defenders already working in opposition to unbelievable odds,” stated the letter.
They famous that the six organisations focused by the Israelis are amongst these most successfully documenting Israel’s systematic violations of Palestinian rights, together with the constructing of unlawful settlements on stolen Palestinian land, assaults on Palestinians’ proper to meals sovereignty, and the unlawful arrest and detention of Palestinians, together with youngsters.
“These organisations have made their voices heard internationally, together with within the Worldwide Felony Courtroom and in UN boards, and they’re undoubtedly focused for that cause,” the group continued.
READ: Germany ‘concerned’ over Israel’s terrorist designation of Palestinian NGOs
“Smearing, attacking, and banning probably the most vocal proponents for accountability and justice is a traditional transfer for repressive regimes,” the unions defined whereas warning Israel’s authoritarian step not solely posed a “menace” to the Palestinian folks but additionally “to human rights defenders in every single place”.
Israel’s designation as an apartheid regime was additionally highlighted. “Up to now yr, human rights specialists together with Human Rights Watch and B’tselem have echoed what Palestinians have been saying for many years: that Israel’s management over Palestinians consists of components of the crime of Apartheid,” the letter added.
Calling on the UK authorities to publicly oppose what the unions described as a “draconian measure” they urged Quantity 10 to demand that Israel reverses it, and additional, to start to fulfil its personal obligations to uphold worldwide legislation and Palestinian rights, together with the precise to self-determination, and the precise to oppose apartheid.
Their letter to the UK authorities coincides with a rising worldwide backlash in opposition to Israel’s resolution to blacklist the six Palestinians organisations. A gaggle of US lawmakers entered a decision condemning the decision as has the UN.
Israelis Towards Apartheid, which has over a thousand signatories, additionally slammed the transfer. “Criminalising any type of dissent and resistance by indigenous Palestinians, by labelling them as terrorists whereas on the similar time calling its personal colonial practices, of oppression and dispossession, ‘self-defense’ is crucial with a view to maintain Israel’s settler-Apartheid system,” the group stated.
